directx-10 posts

PC gamers are now more likely to have a PC rig that supports at least a DirectX 10 video card, according to the latest hardware survey monthly update on the Steam PC game download service. The latest update shows that 56.47 percent of Steam PC users have either a DirectX 10 or DirectX 11-based video card with Windows Vista or Windows 7. Another 21.55 percent of Steam PC owners have a DirectX 10/11 supported card while still running Windows XP, which is DirectX 9 only.

The rest of the survey shows some expected results including Nvidia graphics card and Intel processors in the vast majority of PC systems. Systems with more than one GPU are in a very small minority; just 1.79 percent of systems have such a set-up.

This playable demo for Just Cause 2 lets players run wild on a section Panau Island to try out the open world gameplay. The demo also supports high end graphics features, including Nvidia 3D Vision technology. The game requires at least DirectX 10 to be installed, so Windows XP users will not be able to run this demo. The full game is scheduled to release in North America on March 23rd. A trailer for the demo and full system requirements can be seen after the jump.

Update: Also be aware that the demo requires Steam.

Download the Just Cause 2 Demo (1.04 GB)
Check out all Just Cause 2 downloads
Read All You Need to Know: Just Cause 2

As promised earlier this week, the PC demo version of Just Cause 2 is now available to download. The demo to the upcoming open world action game is a Steam exclusive so you will have to get the Steam client to check it out. The demo, from developer Avalanche Studios and publisher Square Enix (under their Eidos brand) gives gamers a chance to check out a massive 35 square mile portion of the full game.

Just a reminder: Both the game and this demo do not work on Windows XP machines. Just Cause 2 supports DirectX 10 which means it will only work on PCs with Windows Vista or Windows 7 installed.

AMD released patches for the ATI Catalyst video drivers to improve Far Cry 2's DirectX 9 performance on CrossFire compatible systems. DirectX 10 performance improvements include both single card and CrossFire setups.

Download Far Cry 2 ATI Catalyst Driver Hotfix Patch [WinXP] (44 MB)
Download Far Cry 2 ATI Catalyst Driver Hotfix Patch [Vista] (65 MB)
Check out all Far Cry 2 Downloads

Crysis blew gamers away in 2007 with its eye-popping graphics, and met with generally high critical acclaim. Despite what people thought about the actual plot and gameplay, few could deny how fantastic looking the game was. Gamers also realized that intensely realistic DirectX 10 graphics came at a high cost. The developers, Crytek, claim that piracy had a lot to do with relatively average sales of Crysis, which may be the case, but the game's reputation for requiring expensive high-end hardware to run properly had its impact too. The game's follow-up, Crysis Warhead, released recently and claims that the game can run smoothly on a $699 PC using medium settings. We decided to compare the performance differences between Crysis and Warhead and see if the game engine received any significant optimization since its release one year ago.

On the official Age of Conan forums the titles game director has confirmed the development team has begun preparations to merge servers in North America and Europe for more enjoyable online experience. The server merge hasn't been given a date but the team hopes to make the transition as "fair and streamlined as possible" and hope the change "[Serves] as a positive injection to the social scene in the game."

Internally,DirectX 10 servers have been in the testing phase for a number of weeks and Funcom promises the long-awaited feature will showcase a number of visual treats for players. Age of Conan's game director promises that, as early as the next mandatory update, players will begin to see some DirectX 10 features as the team publicly tests the new additions until it is considered strong enough for a live release.

Erling Ellingson, Product Manager for Age of Conan, presents upcoming features and content that will soon be included in the game. New areas for high level characters and amazing DirectX 10 visuals are among some of the things that are coming to Hyboria.

Download HD Age of Conan: Hyborian Insider Episode 4 (121 MB)
Download HD Age of Conan: Hyborian Insider Episode 2 (43 MB)

Alongside their announcement that all Games for Windows LIVE Gold membership features will be free effective immediately (and retroactively for games such as Halo 2), Microsoft also discussed the upcoming DirectX 11 upgrade to their game development API (Application Programming Interface).

Fortunately, unlike the Windows Vista-exclusive features of DirectX 10, DX 11 will offer full support for Vista and all future iterations of the Windows operating system. Full compatibility with all DX 10 and 10.1 features is also expected.

On the technical side, DirectX 11 will also add increased multi-threading resources to allow machines with multiple processes to take better advantage of certain titles. New compute shader technology will be available for developers to one day use a system's GPU as a parallel processor, and tessalation, which, according to the press release Big Download received via email, "blurs the line between super high quality pre-rendered scenes and scenes rendered in real-time," will also be available.

No information regarding a release date for DirectX 11 was made available, though most don't expect its release until sometime in 2009.